ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web
The article compares OpenAI's ChatGPT to a Xerox photocopier that uses lossy compression, leading to subtle inaccuracies. It highlights how both technologies can produce outputs that appear correct but may contain errors. This raises concerns about the reliability of information generated by AI models like ChatGPT.
- ▪OpenAI's ChatGPT offers paraphrases rather than direct quotes, contrasting with Google's approach.
- ▪A Xerox photocopier used lossy compression, resulting in incorrect but seemingly accurate reproductions of documents.
- ▪The incident with the photocopier illustrates the potential pitfalls of relying on AI-generated content that may not be entirely accurate.
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| Original publisher | The New Yorker |
| Canonical URL | https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web |
| Publication time | Wed, 27 May 2026 19:57:29 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-27T20:08:04.392Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-27T20:08:04.392Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | RlNPRfPE59ed |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Annals of Artificial IntelligenceChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the WebOpenAI’s chatbot offers paraphrases, whereas Google offers quotes. Which do we prefer?By Ted ChiangFebruary 9, 2023Play/Pause ButtonPauseIllustration by Vivek ThakkerSave this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyIn 2013, workers at a German construction company noticed something odd about their Xerox photocopier: when they made a copy of the floor plan of a house, the copy differed from the original in a subtle but significant way. In the original floor plan, each of the house’s three rooms was accompanied by a rectangle specifying its area: the rooms were 14.13, 21.11, and 17.42 square metres, respectively. However, in the photocopy, all three rooms were labelled as being 14.13 square metres in size.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The New Yorker.
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